


KTM

by Roadstergal



Category: Motorcycling RPF
Genre: Beer, Career Change, Dogs, Engineering, Gen, Loneliness, Other, Prostitution, Racing, Sex, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3813340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some vignettes on Mike's departure as Dani's crew chief,</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The standard disclaimer for RPF - this is just me playing with the idea of the characters, rather than any indication that I have any insight into their actual lives and thoughts. :)

It was quiet now in his house, very quiet.  Soothingly quiet.  Eerily, strangely quiet, as accustomed as he was to weekends full of the brain-shattering roar of engines and the sickly-sweet smell of race gas, endless surges of adrenaline and fierce work before the next surge, blurring the weekend into one long indistinct frenzy.  
  
Over now.  For the last time, over.  
  
The beer was cool in his hand, the bubbles gently soothing on his tongue, the rich taste something to be savored, sipped slowly.  Like the silence, the gentle sound of wind in the trees, the rustling of nocturnal creatures, the distant hoot of an owl, the cry of a coyote.  
  
It stung, this loneliness. Achingly empty after such fierce _belonging_ , such strong connections to such loved people.  It drained him, to be so intensely with them for so long, and yet he felt the loss of it all keenly.  A necessary, needed, sad solitude.  
  
He drank again, a careful, gentle sip, letting the liquid fill his mouth before slowly running down his throat.  He could do this all night. Get pleasingly drunk.  Forget about things.  All of the _things_ that there were.  
  
Yes, it was for the best; he had made his decision after much thought, considering all angles, choosing what was the best.  But it wasn't without loss, without regret, without consequence.  It wasn't like he wouldn't _miss_... well, everything.  
  
Everything. Yes, what would fill his life now?  
  
Nothing that he could see, not here in his front room - so perfectly neat, everything in its place as it always was, as it had to be.  It wouldn't welcome him home from overly busy weekends, would not soothe his overstimulation anymore.  
  
Like him, it would just... be.


	2. Chapter 2

It was disconcerting, how the long, endless days - days spent trying to find productive things to do, days that dragged on identically to each other - somehow passed so swiftly that before Mike could think, it was the first race of the year.  
  
He watched, of course, every session, every practice - and it felt like he was out of his own body. He had never missed a race, not in more than ten years, and to see the hustle, the familiar movements, the orderly, frantic dance of it all, but to not be there with the sound of the engines vibrating his spine and the sweet-sharp smell of race fuel suffusing his nostrils - it made him feel distant. Like the ghost of a dead man, haunting the track, seeing and not seen, except perhaps as a thought in the back of someone's mind.  A thought that blew away once the garages were struck, the champagne drunk, the track abandoned as swiftly as it had been stormed.  
  
He watched the second race, as well, the late American round, despite the _absence -_ the announcement that Mike had both expected and feared.  The missing rider.  
  
He saw Rossi, and did not raise his hand to the computer screen in a brief, friendly wave.  He saw Alberto, ducking into the Leopard garage.  Was he having sex with those young men? Why not - it was hardly Mike's place to be jealous, to know or mind at all.  And they were doing well, as Mike should expect, by now.  
  
He had a WebEx with the KTM engineers later that week, going over more of their blueprints, discussing their plans.  Speaking of technical matters in German - god, it was _heavenly_.  He was intelligent in his native tongue, sharp and smooth and competent, not hesitant, using the wrong word sometimes, not the slightly dull man that he was in English.  
  
He felt _himself_ enough to hire a prostitute later, a pretty young man who called him _daddy_ in English and didn't giggle about it.  Mike tipped him generously before he left.  He might need the repeat business, after all.  But it was still cold and quiet at night.  
  
The next day, Mike went to the pound. Just to look, he told himself - but the little black puppy with the big floppy ears, surly and quiet in the corner amidst the yapping and howling that echoed deafeningly off of the walls, had to come home with him, sitting on his lap as he drove carefully.  He carried her inside; she pissed on his living room carpet and stared at him balefully.  
  
He cleaned the carpet and began with the long, delicate process of house training.  She sat on his lap during the follow-up teleconference the next day, snoozing with one oversized paw over her nose.  
  
With her help, he managed to go half a day without being tempted to text Alberto, his finger hovering uncertainly over that app on his phone.


End file.
